August 9, 2009

Workshops Up-Date

I?ve just come to the end of two weeks of workshops for myself ?greengallery?, Beaford Arts, the Plough Arts Centre and BBC Blast. It?s funny how it all comes at once; but good that I now have a week dedicated to only the Bideford Folk Festival.

Everyone seemed extremely happy with all they achieved through the workshops, and organisers too, with many sessions being over subscribed; photography seems to getting very popular!

The workshops have covered the whole spectrum of photographic genre and it?s whole history (and pre-history): chronologically I started with the pin-hole camera, at Beaford Arts with a ?gifted and talented? summer school residential designed for school children. The technology of seeing an inverted image on the wall of a darkened room through light entering a tiny hole was known over 2000 years ago and noted by Aristotle. Being inside the room and gradually seeing the image of the outside world reveal itself on the walls, as our eyes adjusted to the lack of light, was a great thrill; repeated again with adults two days later with just as much excitement.

Adult students on my weekend course made pinhole cameras from boxes and tins. This is an incredible process as the raw material is simply a box or tin, made light tight through the liberal use of black tape, made non-reflective inside using black paper or card and having a lens (hole) made with a pin prick in a piece of silver foil which is then taped over a larger hole somewhere on the box. Exposures are made through the pinhole onto black and white photo paper, held in the box with masking tape. Another square of black tape serves as a shutter. That?s all there is to it and this image was made after about 5 hours of the workshop. The image above was made by ‘soon to be teacher’ Natacha Withoft.

Images without a camera follows with the making of photograms or as Man Ray coined in the 1920?s ?Ray-o-graphs?, the placing of objects on photographic paper, exposing them to light in a darkroom, then developing and fixing the image ? this process goes back to the very early days of photography 1840?s when Fox Talbot and others made similar images on light sensitive paper. Daylight prints or chemograms were also made, a similar process but with no darkroom, and giving wonderful warm browns, pinks, purple and yellow colours, with occasional greens where the paper was fixed (slightly) first and silver where a build up of the metal occurred on the paper.

To carry on in a chronological order I could give you two examples of long exposures which relate to the length of time one might have had to expose film or plates in the 19th century. One of my workshop titles for BBC Blast was ?Action Photography?, and one of my methods for recording action/movement was to slow it down and sometimes use flash to freeze it within the same image; this image shows my Blast students photographing a dance practice with as slow shutter speeds as they could use. The process was taken to a greater extreme at the Beaford residential where, after everyone feeling really tired by 8pm we took stock for an hour then carried on outside to experience night photography. Give a few young teenagers torches and you need to do little directing to make some great images. Everyone got fantastic pictures, even those who had no control over shutter speed managed to make images by combining layers of light rings together. This image of the Beaford Centre and students was a 1 minute exposure using a tripod to steady the camera.

Another successful project during the residential was making a joiner similar to David Hockney?s images made in the 1980?s. Students were encouraged to photograph each other in situ around the building; making many images which were then printed out and joined together to make life-sized images. This one, slightly bigger than life, will be made permanent through wallpaper pasting the images onto the door then sealing it with yacht varnish.

Coming right up-to-date all of the BBC Blast workshops, the Plough Arts Centre and most of the Beaford residential were based around getting more out of digital cameras. Time was spent on all of these understanding the basics; aperture, shutter speed, focal length, ISO, exposure etc; setting the cameras up for optimum image quality and making more interesting and engaging images for any given subject. Using the past as inspiration to visualise the future.

Experiencing life inside a camera, a converted bedroom at Beaford Arts.

July 9, 2009

Fringe TheatreFest 2009

I have been making documentary photographs since my time at College where this was my strongest work. I?m still very attracted to the tradition in it?s pure sense: shooting only under available light, being a witness to what actually happens rather than setting it up or manipulating events, being as ?invisible? as I could be so that my presence didn?t affect what happened, being objective, looking for ?decisive? moments, being open to the unexpected, anticipating what might make the picture and being amazed at what does make it.

The light was so low here that this image was made at 1sec exposure f4.5 and 2000iso

At the end of June, at the same time as Art Trek, Sadie and I photographed the Fringe TheatreFest in Barnstaple. We?d offered to do this as our way of supporting the festival this year (we were stewards in 2008). It became an interesting brief because we were unable to photograph any of the performances. There were no dress rehearsals so documentary was everything but the theatre performances.

It didn?t help that I had picked up teaching work in Tiverton which took me out of the Thursday and Friday daytime slots, and the weekend was spent at Broomhill doing my Art Trek residency.

There were 3 venues, the Baptist Church Hall and the Inn on the Square upstairs and downstairs with 21 different acts most of which did 3 performances. Most also did a ?tech? which involved anything from a full rehearsal with lights and sound to positioning a few lights in a 5 minute slot.

This kind of work though is very rewarding. I remember a restrictive graphics brief on a National Diploma course used to bring out better ideas than an open brief. Restriction brings us freedom, and there where lots of restrictions here both enforced and self imposed: imagine how dark a theatre is, then imagine there are no stage lights set up, then remember these are spaces that have been made into venues within a couple of days and you can start to appreciate how dark it was ? the cameras rarely had an iso slower than 1600, shutter speeds 20th of a second or slower, aperture wide open ? there was also the hike from one venue to the next hoping not to miss anything.

Sadie did a great job on her own when I was unable to be there getting this wonderfull ?Winograndesc? picture of Janice Connolly as Barbara Nice from ?Hiya and Higher?.

All of the photos can be seen on the Fringe TheatreFest Website: http://theatrefest.co.uk/pics.htm

June 30, 2009

Art Work made during Art Trek 2009

The last two weekends has seen me demonstrating my process for making camera-less images, sun prints, chemical prints, daylight print, leaf works or whatever you?d like to think of them as. I did this for Art Trek, at Broomhill Sculpture Park near Barnstaple, North Devon?s open studios event at the end of June.

There was a lot of interest with over 60 people visiting on the last Sunday alone. I was making work throughout Art Trek, the image above being the best constructed image made over the first weekend. I used leaves and more from ?throw-a-way? plants and trees rather than some of the more cultivated ones planted specially in the gardens. This particular image was made using stinging nettles and dock leaves, traditionally used as an anaesthetic for the sting; these plants can always be found together and are like yin and yang, sting and anaesthetic, positive and negative complementing the traditional photographic process I was using.

Over the last weekend I made a few single 5×7 inch unique prints from columbine, elder, ash and foxglove (there may have been other leaves etc and included 2x slugs that got in on the act by accident). These I sold at ?10 each once they were archivally fixed, washed and dried then mounted on foam board. I still have some of these left for sale for ?10 with free p&p through Europe, it?ll cost a fraction more for the States. If you?d like one please visit my main website: http://www.davegreenphoto.co.uk/pages/forest.htm

This is an example of a 5×7 inch unique print made during Art Trek 2009
May 27, 2009

Photo Workshops this Summer

I?ll be running a lot of photography workshops/courses over the summer. Every Tuesday in June and July. The Morning workshops are designed as a basic introduction to digital photography; learning to gain control over your camera, shutter speeds, aperture, iso, flash etc, setting it up for optimum quality under any given lighting, and making better pictures through composition. The Afternoon sessions are based around photographing landscape and the natural environment. This workshop is designed for someone who has a basic knowledge of how to use their camera but now wants to experience the natural landscape in a personal and creative way.

On Wednesday July 22nd I?m doing a special one day workshop exploring triptychs and the constructed image. I?ll will be using historic and contemporary examples and sharing my own experience in this one day workshop. A basic knowledge and experience of using your own digital camera is required for this day. A detailed itinerary for the workshop will be available soon. See my website for details: http://www.davegreenphoto.co.uk/pages/workshops.htm

Also I?ll be leading, with Caroline Preston a couple of residential courses, developing and exploring photographic techniques, at Beaford Arts. The first one?s for school years 9-11 and starts 10:00 Thursday 30th – 16:00 Friday 31st July and the second is for school years 6-8 and starts 10:00 Monday 3rd – 16:00 Tuesday 4th August. Details are here: http://www.beaford-arts.org.uk/index.php?id=21 also whilst you?re there check out my pages as a Beaford Artist: http://www.beaford-arts.org.uk/index.php?id=84 and: http://www.beaford-arts.org.uk/index.php?id=57 thanks to Jane at Beaford for these!

Talking of which I?ll also be having an exhibition of current work there during the last week of July and the first week of August. And I?ll be running some very special workshops for adults at Beaford over the weekend of 1st and 2nd August, I haven?t fully planned it yet, but think camera-less, so if there?s anything you?d like me to cover let me know; details will arrive here as soon as it?s all finalised.

May 15, 2009

Art Trek

Suddenly I?m a lot busier than I was, fitting in 2? days teaching at East Devon College in Tiverton, I?ve lapsed in my blog writing. Neither have I made many new images recently, of the large ?art? variety, as my best camera lens is being repaired. But I see this summer as a very creative time.

On Thursday 28th May I?ll be promoting Art Trek on the quay, under canvas, at the Appledore Visual Arts Festival. Art Trek for real starts three weeks later and I?ll be based at Broomhill Sculpture Park between Barnstaple and Muddiford making camera-less images. This will be the first time that I have used traditional photographic chemicals and paper for eight years and it will be fascinating to see what I can make from the leaves I find in Broomhill’s wonderful gardens. This will be a taste of the Year of the Artist residency I did with an Arts Council grant in 2001. I?ll be next to the Broomhill Stables (which will house North Devon Art?s Square Picture Show) on the 20th, 21st, 27th and 28th June 2009.

Whilst preparing for this residency I came across a whole load of unfinished work that I made in 2001 at the National Forest in Leicestershire. I had been making so many new pieces during the Year of the Artist residency that most of them had never been constructed together and mounted; I had quickly moved onto other things in 2001. these ?old? new pieces will be shown whilst I?m at Broomhill, one of them will also be show in the Queens theatre Caf? Gallery, Barnstaple, during June.

I had hoped to do some workshops during the Tuesdays of Art Trek, but I?m now committed to teaching in Tiverton. However if the interest is there, I?ll be happy to do something like this later in the summer.